I would like to go back to the format of Series 5, but without the dance off. Mind you, if I had to put up with the dance off to get everything else, then I'd settle for that.

I agree. Does the flashing light business make other people uncomfortable too ? My first thought about the new set last year was that it was too glaring. The results show yesterday was almost blinding when that woman was singing.But least said the better about the Wembley debacle really! And Zoe's set has so much sparkle it's a wonder we don't all self combust.

It's their flagship show because it does cater to the masses.

Every show has to evolve otherwise you might as well watch series 1 on loop but the trouble is, for me, they've evolved away from what it was that made Strictly special - teaching a celebrity TO DANCE. Now they just teach them a 90 second routine and they have no grounding in the basics anymore.

As a viewer, you can tell. The celebs this year just aren't going on the improvement journey (sorry about that word) that they did in previous years and it's because, in my opinion, they're not learning the basics of ballroom and latin.

In previous series, you could take what you'd learned in the waltz, for example and take it onto your foxtrot, but now they're doing so much faffing and very little basic footwork or hold training that every dance is a ball of confusion for them.

I wouldn't be so bothered about the music, or the judges, or the shoddy workmanship on the show if I could see the celebs improving every week, but by and large, they're not.

Also, there just isn't anyone genuinely witty or clever this year to lighten the mood. Russell was too over the top, Jason too intense, Holly too laidback, Robbie too whiny, Anita too needy, Harry too shy and Chelsee too distractable, although she's coming across the best.

The GBP are a fickly bunch, they're like Goldilocks, the porridge has to be just right.

Its been changed to give the people watching what they want (or put another way, from an alternative viewpoint, dumbed down to give them what the producers think they want) Its what they think an audience that kept in John Sergeant, likes panto rowing judges , and voted for Chris Hollins wants. They seem to be a year behind the times, after Kara won last year, but thats probably right for TV thinking timescales. . Everything else follows. And good people from previous series wouldn't be walking it because "it" has changed and its changed in the direction that made, Ricky or Ali or Rachel runners up in the first place They would look good against this year but they might have fewer votes still.

This series has great potential as Chelsee, Holly, Harry and Jason were capable of a real competition. If you had to have a joke act, Russell was a good one, and the public played its part and got rid of him before he did any damage.

Its been blown off course by poor pairing (Brendan should never have been with Lulu, and Artem shouldn't have been with Holly, and Vincent should have had someone better) That was because the producers decided they wanted stories over dancing. Its, as you say, lost its structure with dances turning up randomly- presumably as someone deemed that too many people doing the same dance was boring.

Most importantly its been turned into an entertainment show with optional dancing. The judges marks are random, and their comments all over the place, because there's no decision or consensus on what should be happening. There's little dancing, because half the acts are going for entertainment and not being penalised for avoiding the actual dance. The pros don't know whether dancing loses more in votes than it can gain in marks, and the judges give high marks for avoiding it and lower ones for making mistakes attempting it, as they swap marking logics. Rows between judges , dances with little dancing, suitably irelevant music, lack of development, and lack of wow dances all follow.

The result is what you have. Chelsee gets a good mix of steps and entertainment, and her technical issues don't count against her on the leaderboard, as no one else does technically more, or better, Anita and Alex try and be contestants from an earlier series, but don't have to do much thats difficult to score highly. Artem is constructing artistic displays for Holly - regardless of whether its too difficult, fits her character or can compete with the entertainment or simplicity elsewhere. He thinks it worked last year, but hasn't cottoned on that the problem is the producers have changed the game. Jason plods on trying earnestly ,makes errors trying, but still scores highly, Harry takes his shirt off, does a few steps well and then watches Aliona for most of their time and scores higher. Ola wants you to watch her, and Robbie's chest, and wants their twitter following to remember why they follow - and succeeds brilliantly. Alesha marks chests and entertainment, Bruno marks the same, with some deductions for mistakes, Craig marks consistently, but has stopped penalising lack of dancing as he would have, and Len can't decide if he should object to the lack of dancing, or avoid boos by marking up the entertainment. he does both in the end, randomly.

Agree with both your posts Buddy *waves*

This year is a poor crop of celebs but it is the mix of dances and the blatent overmarking that really peeve me- if you look at the Colin era- he struggled to get 9's whereas now they are handed out in the 2nd week and for dances like Alex's Tango on Saturday.

whos moira ross

If you had rules that defined what was meant to happen that way, you could do that. But the judges don't now have such rules. You also would need to change the voters. When some people are bad or going for entertainment, and having any success, the result of giving them lower marks is now an anti-judge vote that keeps them in longer and longer. If you have to give your weaker dancers 7s to avoid an anti-judge vote, its inevitable that the average to good will get 8s and 9s and the best 10s. The differentials between 9 and 10 in Zoe's day no longer exist. Blame the public vote, and the producers for giving in to it and going for entertainment, rather than the judges for trying to make sense of something that has none.

thenetworkbabe..superb post. Covers all the bases without bias, and also manages to be less depressing than some posts here.
I have nothing to add..except perhaps to say that this didn't all happen overnight, it's been a gradual change (or decline, depending on your point of view) from series to series.
I'm still finding things to enjoy from the current series, but the show is in danger of moving into the kind of territories that I used to depise on other programmes. I can understand if they are a slave to the ratings, but they have to be careful..once they start losing regular viewers, it will be very difficult to get them back.

Yes, Strictly's regular viewers are its core. Craig's always telling us we've got to get our core right, and Craig knows what he's talking about !!

I think the producers are obsessed with trying to beat XF in the ratings and are dumbing down in order to do that. Basically I think they just don't understand dance.

I don't expect every year will produce outstanding dancers, some years will be better than others, and I can accept that. However, this year although they have a few promising dancers, they haven't been given the chance to reach their full potential, what with:-
Wasting time on stupid VT's,
Having partners who choreograph more faffing around (probably at producers' request) than actual dancing,
Judges who have lowered their standards and
Music which, in some cases, seems to have no connection with the dance they are trying to do.

I'd love to know how many hours they train compared with previous years.

Absolutely right in everything you say. The show is a tortured caricature of everything the viewers used to love. Even the judges look fed up and the professionals seem to regard it as a bit of a laugh.. And I don't think anybody is warming to the celebrities - they are just a morass of nothingness. So sad. Why oh why did they have to tinker with a winning format?

I'm with you. Go back about three years before Jay Hunt got rid of Arlene and everything started going downhill. And then we got Moira Razzamatazz Ross

From what I've seen, the standard of dancing on DWTS is even lower than SCD's.Even Russell is better than Hope who did a Rumba in UGG boots and Hope was a semifinalist! And Ricki wouldn't have got a perfect score for her Samba on SCD because Craig only gives a 10 when deserved.

This year IMO has suffered because the celebs have had little or no dance training before meeting their pro partners and had either 3 or 2 weeks before their first dance.

As far as I remember, a few years back they had 6 weeks before their first dance. I remember Vincent saying that he had tried Rachel out with all the dances to see which ones suited her the best and they both predicted that the Rumba would be her dance. Didn't mean he trained her in them all, but it gave him time to teach her some basics that would be useful in the future dances. They trained very hard in those 6 weeks and Rachel's first week Salsa would have looked good in a final.

Robbie Savage spends more time tweeting than rehearsing.

I agree with all of that entirely. Strictly's never returned to the high point of series 5 for me, although I loved series 7, and liked a few couples last year despite the over-use of props.

This is the first year where I don't care if I miss a show and don't get to catch up the same day. I blame the producers entirely, because the dancing standard is simply not there - I turned on the Wembley show on Saturday and watching Kristina dancing a jive in flat shoes. Ok, it's the one dance (Charleston aside) where it works, but in a proper Dancesport competition a jive is danced in proper Latin shoes, as all the jives on Strictly used to be. I watched Alex dance a Viennese Waltz that was slower than many classic Waltzes that have been on the show in previous years even though the Viennese is the faster dance. And I won't even get started on the mistake that was introducing the AT before the semi-finals (with the notable exception of Kara Tointon, and I liked Matt's as well)....

I might be nitpicking, but all the beautiful dancing that once made me love the show, and that existed even as late as last year with Kara's tangos, Pamela's waltz, Matt's Viennese Waltz etc, has now gone completely, and high scores are being given out for dances that wouldn't have scored 28 in previous series, never mind getting a 10, because the producers think the public want more props and gimmicks and less of the last word in the title of the show....

It's such a shame, because it used to be a fabulous show, but once the producers stopped properly respecting the talented pros and the classic rules of dance, it lost its heart. And the cringeworthy VTs this year put me off altogether - it's one bit of childish schmaltz too much for me!

Have to agree with almost all you say. How can a flagship show go from having it so right, absolutely spot on, in previous years to getting it so wrong, i.e. not know what its audience wants ?? I just hope somebody from the staff is looking at these forums on DS this week and that the lovely music and dances of previous years will return, and the props, totally wrong venues, faffing about and stupid VTs will go. Any hope ??

Spot on.

The BBC really are incredible. The verdict on the show this year, and particularly Wembley, is virtually universal yet they sail blithely on totally ignoring the audience. Tonight on ITT Zoe was saying 'she didn't know what we felt but Wembley had been fab for her.' Why didn't she know - there are literally thousands of people posting and ringing the BBC. Maybe it's all this if it's Sunday it must be Saturday business that gets them confused.

The only good thing about Wembley. When they were dancing on the raised stage in the middle, the cameras were lower than them, so we got to see far more feet.

To be honest, my biggest gripe is the way we keep being fed the line he/she/the show/the dance is one of the best evvvahh when it's perfectly obvious that actually, no, it's not.

If it was stopped being hyped up into something it isn't then it would be easier to enjoy it for what it actually is. Not a vintage year, at the minute, but not (for me) one of the worst either.

No amount of shouting and overmarking can make it better than it is - but it can take away the enjoyment of what it is.

Nailed!

*applause*

I agree wholeheartedly HHGTTG. However if what I've read in the papers is true and SCD is now finally trouncing X-Factor in the ratings then I believe the show will go further downhill. More and bigger props, more dizzying camerawork, more stupid themes, more themes, more praising of mediocrity. LESS DANCING!!!

I think the average score(s) this year are down on last year's.

The best thing about this thread is that we've been able to have the discussion without anyone calling us dance purists.

Since series 6 I have stopped comparing scores from series to series and, as much as I can I try not to get worked up about the judges' scores each week. I just cross my fingers that the leaderboard stacks up about right. It doesn't work perfectly, but I enjoy the show slightly more.

That said, I miss the excitement I used to feel every single week, when I would get goosebumps (or a lump in my throat) from watching at least one dance. The 'j' word used to be a joke, but the truth is we hardly see journeys like we used to see. I didn't 'feel' Kara and Artem last year and that surprised me. If I'm honest I think the show has been getting worse since series 6, when I think the producers decided it had to be better than series 5 which was exceptional. Series 6 soured the show for me, but I will keep watching for now in the hope that someone has a breakthrough week.